


Two Losses

by dettiot



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 20:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dettiot/pseuds/dettiot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another night in Sunnydale, with the crossing paths of two expats who have both lost someone.  Spoilers: Doomsday for Doctor Who; The Gift for Buffy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Losses

Considering the neighborhood, it wasn't surprising that there were a lot of bars in Sunnydale. What was surprising was that there were any nice ones. In Spike's experience, the watering holes around the Hellmouth were decorated in late dilapidated and served drinks that tasted like rat piss.

He shifted a bit, trying not to make too much noise as his duster rubbed against the rich leather upholstery of his club chair. He picked up the cut-crystal glass, filled with twelve-year-old Scotch, and took a small sip. And coughed.

Across from him in a matching chair, Giles looked up from his own glass and raised an eyebrow. "Not your usual drink of choice, I gather," he said dryly.

"Patrolling and shaking down demons just barely keeps me in blood and smokes," Spike said tartly. "We can't all have cushy jobs that let us buy good Scotch while doing nothi--" He stopped before he went any further. Before he burned that bridge. He knew that it was mostly Giles' doing that let him spend time with the Nibblet. The Scoobies as a whole were useless; any one of them would be a much better babysitter than he was. 

But he had made a promise. A promise he was going to keep.

Spike took another sip of Scotch, trying to enjoy the long-forgotten taste. The bar--no, it was practically an honest-to-goodness pub--was full of dim corners and soft lights, the clink of glasses and the murmur of conversation, dark wood and overstuffed chairs. It made him think of the place he snuck away to, back when he was human and he worried about the proprieties of visiting a public house.

"I found this place when Buffy started college," Giles said, noticing his observation of the room. The former Watcher's voice was full of restrained nostalgia. "I had quite a bit of time on my hands, and that cushy salary allowed me to develop a taste for good Scotch." He lifted his glass and took a small, appreciative sip. 

Spike stared into his glass. This wasn't the first time the Watcher and him had shared a drink. But before, they had been at Giles' place, having a quick one before he went off patrolling on his own. Demons and vamps were overrunning the town, and without Buffy--

Spike frowned and took a large gulp, welcoming the burn. Ever since May, life in Sunnydale seemed even more pointless. If not for his promise, he'd light off. Go see more of the world, get out of this domestic phase he'd fallen into, remember what he really was. Not a man, but a vampire.

A soft clatter behind him drew him out of his musings. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted a fellow hunched over the bar, a glass rolling away from him. The stranger got up, stumbling a bit, and wandered over to Spike and Giles.

"Hello!" the stranger said, a wide, brittle smile on his face. "Don't s'pose I might impose on you?" He wrinkled his nose. "Bit of an internal rhyme there. But don't worry--I'm not a poet or anything, not given to rhyming, me."

Spike felt his hackles rise as the stranger slumped down in a chair between Giles and himself. Dressed in a crumpled brown suit and long brown coat, he looked rather bundled up for California. His accent was pure Estuary, but he was such a pretty boy that Spike was sure he didn't suffer too much from being lower class. 

Giles, being human and clearly stuck in California too long, seemed willing to make friends with the stranger. "New in town?" he asked politely.

"Oh, just passing through--well, I say passing, more like passing through with a purpose," the man replied cheerfully, bouncing a bit in his chair and tapping his fingers on the chair's arms. 

His hackles were definitely raised now. Something was off about this guy. Not just his looks--there was something about all this forced cheer of his. Like he was trying not to think about something . . . 

Spike hid his face in his glass and listened to Giles' conversation with the stranger.

" . . . yes, had a doo-dad that I wanted to get checked out, and everything I read and heard said that Sunnydale was the place to get it looked at," the unnamed man said, his words slightly slurred.

Giles cleared his throat. "If it's not too much to ask, whom might you be looking for?"

"Chap named Rupert Giles, I believe," the stranger said, turning towards the bar as if to gesture to the bartender for a drink.

"You're in luck, then. I'm Rupert Giles."

The stranger turned and looked shocked. "Are you? Blimey, what a coincidence!"

Giles nodded and gestured towards Spike. "And this is my . . . associate, Spike."

The man in the brown suit reached out and shook both their hands. "A pleasure to meet both of you. I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor What?" Giles asked.

"Just the Doctor," the stranger said. "Hello!" he said again, his manic grin not reaching his eyes.

"Ahh," Giles said, falling back on a noncommittal sound instead of trying to find something to say. Spike would snort, if he wasn't trying to figure out what was going on with this Doctor bloke.

The man in question stood up and started digging through his pockets. "Since I've found you, perhaps you might take a look at the artifact I have? It's not much, just a trifle, but I'm--well, I'm curious."

Giles nodded. "Natural trait for all of us," he said, moving to the edge of his chair. 

"More natural for some of us than others," the Doctor said, still hunting for the item. Surely his pockets couldn't be that big, Spike wondered. Finally, the Doctor retrieved the thingamajig and handed it to Giles.

It wasn't much of anything, as far as Spike could tell, but then, strange bits and bobs wasn't his line. Giles was clearly excited by the dull-colored carved figure that the Doctor had handed him. He was muttering under his breath and looking like a kid on Christmas morning.

"I say . . . quite fine . . . if it's what I think . . . " Giles looked up at the Doctor, his eyes alight. "Where did you find this?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I've had it so long, I'm not quite sure where I got it."

Giles nodded. "If you wouldn't mind, I have a colleague that I'd like to contact. She might be able to help me fully identify this object."

"Of course, of course," the Doctor said, sounding distracted. "Excuse me, be right back." He got up quickly and walked out of the pub, leaving his long brown coat draped over the back of his seat. 

Giles didn't even notice the Doctor's exit, still mumbling under his breath as he moved towards the bank of phones at the back of the pub. Spike shrugged and took another sip of Scotch, looking around. Now that his glass was empty, he might have a pint--on the Watcher's tab, of course. Standing up, he turned towards the bar and noticed some papers sticking out of a pocket on the Doctor's coat. They were about to fall on the floor, and Spike paused to shove them deeper in the pocket. But he stopped, his hand still reaching towards them, when he realized what they were.

Photos. Of Dawn.

Spike casually took the photos and wandered over to a dark corner before starting to flip through the snapshots. They were candids--looked like they had been taken when Dawn was out and about, and within the past few days to boot. There she was outside the Magic Box with the witches, there walking towards school as the Buffybot waved goodbye. There was even a shot of her sitting on the front porch of her house in the orange light of sunset.

He didn't like what this was all adding up to. The guy had given off a bad vibe to him from the minute he'd seen him. And now Spike knew why. He wanted the Nibblet for something. No--he wanted the Key.

"Sorry," the Doctor said, coming up to Spike. "Had to pop back to my motor, grab something I'd forgotten . . . " His voice trailed off when he saw the pictures clutched in Spike's hands.

"I . . . I know this looks bad--" the Doctor started, before Spike grabbed him by his suit lapels and dragged him out of the pub. He threw the skinny bastard against the wall of the alley that the pub's entrance opened out into.

"Oh, mate, this is looking much worse than 'bad'," Spike retorted, getting into the Doctor's face. "And you've picked the wrong girl to mess with."

The Doctor's arrogant pretty face hardened, and suddenly he looked like a different man. "She's more than a girl," he said. "She's the Key."

Spike gripped his lapels again, banging the Doctor's overly-gelled head against the brick wall. "No, she's a girl! Just a girl!" He pulled the git back to bang him into the wall again, but stopped, mid-motion. "Hang on," he said, confused. "I can't hurt humans."

The Doctor was clutching the back of his head, rubbing the spot where it had made contact. "Not human," he said, wincing.

"Not human?" Spike echoed. He kept a hold of the Doctor's suit, then took a long sniff of him. "You don't smell like a demon."

"That's because I'm not," the Doctor said peevishly, pushing Spike away from him. "And that hurt!" 

"If you're not human and not a demon, what the bloody hell are you?" Spike asked impatiently.

The sensitive git rolled his eyes, still rubbing his head. "I'm an alien."

Spike snorted. "Yeah, right. And I'm a bloody awful poet."

"But you are," the Doctor said, his expression smug. "Aren't you, William?" He raised an eyebrow and straightened up, his head injury now apparently forgotten.

Clenching his hands made Spike remember the photos he was still holding. "Let's get back to the important subject of how you're preying on an innocent girl who's just lost her sister."

The Doctor went through another one of those lightning-fast mood changes, his face going blank and pale. "No harm will come to Dawn. But . . . but I have to have access to the Key." He took a step forward, his eyes dark and deep. "I . . . I lost my . . ."

When his voice trailed off, Spike prodded him. "Yeah? Your . . . ?"

The Doctor swallowed. "I lost somebody, and I have to get her back."

Spike shook his head. "If she's dead, you've got to let her go. It's not right, bringin' someone back--"

He shook his head wildly. "She's not dead! She's alive. She's living her life, trapped in another universe, and I can't get to her!" He turned and stalked away for a few steps, before turning back to Spike. "I know what Glory tried to do. But she was psychotic and didn't have the tools I have. I swear to you, Dawn will be fine." 

"Oh, you swear--that makes all the difference!" Spike said sarcastically. "You can forget about Dawn. Too bad about your whatever-she-is, but I don't care if you're Mr. Wizard himself, there's no way you're gonna convince me that you can keep Dawn safe."

"I can! I'm a genius!" the Doctor said angrily. "If I say I can keep Dawn safe, I can. All I need to do is tap the power of the Key--but unlike Glory, I can focus it, open a small window into just one universe, the right universe, to get back--"

"No!" Spike said furiously. "You'll have to find another way, 'cause the Key is off the market!"

"If there was any other way, *any* other way, I would be using it!" the Doctor protested. "I've tried every possible option: the slimmest of hopes, the fattest of chances. There is no other way for me to get Rose back, and--and I _have_ to get her back."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Spare me the sob story, mate. You've loved and lost; move on and be grateful that at least she's alive," he said bitterly. 

The Doctor sat down heavily on a crate. "I can't," he said, his face looking suddenly looking old and worn. "I just . . . can't." 

"Boo, hoo," Spike said. "Cry me a river."

With that, something inside the Doctor seemed to snap, jumping to his feet. Mirroring Spike's earlier actions, the Doctor grabbed the lapels of his duster and pulled him close. "Shut up! You don't know! A vampire like you, barely a hundred and fifty and you're considered old! I've lived over nine hundred years--I'm facing centuries more. And without the one woman I--" He bit off his words and suddenly shoved Spike hard into the alley wall.

He winced as he hit the wall. With a groan, he pushed off and turned to face the Doctor, whose anger seemed to have drained out of him like water from a bathtub. He was panting, his face flushed, his eyes lost, as he sat again on the crate. 

"How long has it been?" Spike asked curiously, marveling at the way the Doctor could change emotions on a dime. He leaned against the wall of the alley and fished a cigarette out of the pocket of his duster.

"How long do you think it is?" the young-old Doctor asked, gazing down at his hands.

Spike shrugged his shoulders as he lit his cigarette. "Couple of days, maybe?"

The Doctor laughed ruefully. "Try a couple of years."

A stab of unwilling sympathy went through Spike. Years? 

"There was a battle," the Doctor continued, his voice low and strained. "We had nearly won. And then Rose . . . sacrificed herself. She got sucked into another universe. And I can't get to her. She's with her family, her best friend. I should be happy." He dropped his head, staring at the ground.

Spike scuffed his boots against the ground, sucking on his cigarette. He sighed and tossed the half-smoked butt on the ground, grinding it out. "Listen," he said softly. "I understand. I really do. Bloody hell, if there was a way that didn't involve Dawn, I'd probably help you myself. But . . . whatever promises you give me, it's not enough. There's no guarantee that's enough, since it's Dawn's safety on the line." He paused, and then went ahead. "If our positions would reversed, you'd protect your friend, no matter what, yeah?"

The Doctor rubbed a hand over his face, then through his hair, disheveling it. "Yeah," he said in resignation, his shoulders slumping a bit. "It was a long shot, anyways, getting you to agree. And I knew that right from the start." He looked up at Spike, his eyes two dark coals. "But I had to try. For her."

With a nod, Spike stuffed his hands in his duster pockets. "Lost my own . . . well, lost someone recently, too. And if there was a way to turn back time, make it so she hadn't died . . . well, I'd take it."

The Doctor let out another rueful laugh and stood up. "Turning back time just makes things worse. Trust me." He gestured towards the pub. "I'll get my coat and leave." 

The other man--who wasn't a man, but an alien--walked into the pub. After a moment, he was out again, his coat draped over his arm. "Tell Mr. Giles he can keep the doo-dad." He reached out a hand towards Spike. "Thanks for the ear."

Spike took his hand, giving it a firm but brief shake. "Yeah. Sorry about your friend."

With a nod of the head, the Doctor acknowledged him, then turned and walked off into the darkness. After a few moments, Spike felt the wind kick up, and a strange noise fill the air. But both the wind and the noise died away as quickly as they had started. 

And with that, Spike turned and walked off into the night, to patrol some. Because that was what Buffy would have done. 

End.


End file.
